If you sniffed a whiff of something not-so-pleasant around the Capital Region on Saturday, you weren't alone. Social media chatter tracked many complaints of something odoriferous in the air, but the source of the stink remained a mystery.

Judging from comments, the phantom stench appeared sometime in the morning and continued on and off throughout the day, reaching north to Clifton Park, west to Niskayuna, east to East Greenbush, south to Glenmont and throughout the city of Albany.

Many who smelled it compared it to manure. Some thought they might have stepped on something more canine in origin — and dutifully checked the soles of their shoes. One woman wondered whether she was following a garbage truck. Another thought it might be a construction site. A third compared it to flatulence.

The Port of Albany was not the cause: "There's nothing down there," said General Manager Richard Hendrick. No ships hauling anything unusually rank, he said.

The Troy Federal Lock and Dam noted no noxious scent. A worker at Erie Canal Lock 7, in Niskayuna, said no smelly vessels had passed through, and no one in boats or along the waterfront mentioned a stink.

The on-call person for the Albany Water Department could not be reached. But no abnormal odors were emanating from the Sludge Treatment Plant on Canal Road in Menands, said Henry Carl, shift supervisor for the Albany County Sewer District.

"It's a sludge treatment plant, so it doesn't smell like a rose, obviously," he said. And sometimes the nearby compost plant "is kind of funky and musky."

But not on Saturday, when Carl's experienced nose detected nothing unusual on the grounds. "Everything here is (standard operating procedure) you know?"